The usual operating methods for internal combustion engines using externally supplied ignition usually provide the operating of a throttle valve, in order to adjust an air mass flow supplied to the internal combustion engine, and thereby to set the torque produced by the internal combustion engine. In the usual systems, for example, the throttle valve is always at least partially closed when, with the aid of an accelerator sensor, a torque command by the driver has been ascertained that is reduced compared to an earlier value.
This known control via the air path of the internal combustion engine has the important disadvantage that it is comparatively slow, so that a dynamic operation of the internal combustion engine is only still possible in a very restricted manner. Especially when exhaust-gas turbochargers are used, the air mass flow that is reduced by the throttle valve acts negatively on the dynamic operating performance, because the turbine of the exhaust-gas turbocharger first has to be accelerated again to its nominal rotational speed after a throttling. This effect, known also as a “turbo hole”, comes about because of the insufficient usual control methods not only in response to an acceleration of the internal combustion engine from its idling speed, but also in all other operating ranges, in which the internal combustion engine is to be accelerated again shortly after a reduction in the torque command.